It's been ages since I've posted here...almost two whole years. I'm just checking in to say that my disease remains stable, my scans unremarkable, and my life incredibly full. For all this I am deeply grateful. I'm currently working on starting a small art-related business, which I hope to have fully up and going and staffed before my next scans in September. This summer I'm planning to visit family and friends, as I do each year, and each year my gratitude grows for the days we spend together. 

I am hoping to write more about what survival looks like from here, with diagnosis over six years in the past, several really good years of stability, filled with adventure and love. One of the really difficult things, though, besides that ever-persistent fear of recurrence, has been to see other friends and family in the cancer community have to deal with recurrence, treatment changes, increasingly aggressive treatment, and ultimately, death. I paused my busy-ness the other day to name all the people I know, both close friends and "cancer buddies" from phone support groups and online, who have lost their lives to various types of cancer. It's a grim count, and one I probably wouldn't even be making if I weren't also a cancer patient. So while survival has been (mostly) a joyful experience for me, my exuberance is always tempered by the losses I see all around me in Cancerland. 

Some people talk about cancer being a "gift", believing it has "given them time to stop and reflect and prepare and be with loved ones in a meaningful way." I suppose that last part is true...one necessarily has to stop and reflect and prepare...I hope my time spent with loved ones has always been meaningful, but if having a deadly illness somehow makes those relationships more meaningful, I'm grateful for the relationships, but not the effing illness. 

Cancer is a curse, not a gift. But it is part of the human condition for many, many, oh so many of us. And with whatever amount of survival we get, along with love, joy, time, reflection, preparation, there is always, always grief. Also part of the human condition. But grief is not greater, and never will be greater than love, the best part of being human.